And after that, what are a woman's words? No more than woman's tears, that they should shake you.

Doge Woman, this clamorous grief of thine, I tell thee,

Is no more in the balance weigh'd with that
Which but I pity thee, my poor Marina!

Mar. Pity my husband, or I cast it from me;
Pity thy son! Thou pity!-'tis a word
Strange to thy heart-how came it on thy lips?
Doge. I must bear these reproaches, though they
Couldst thou but read-
[wrong me.

To which I am tending: when

Your pleasure?

Mar.

But for the poor children
Of him thou canst not, or thou wilt not save,
You were the last to bear it.
Doge.

Would it were so !
Better for him he never had been born;
Better for me. I have seen our house dishonour'd.
Mar. That's false! A truer, nobler, trustier heart,
More loving, or more loyal, never beat
Within a human breast. I would not change
My exiled, persecuted, mangled husband,
Oppress'd but not disgraced, crush'd, overwhelm'd,
Alive, or dead, for prince or paladin

In story or in fable, with a world

To back his suit. Dishonour'd 1-he dishonour'd!
I tell thee, Doge, 'tis Venice is dishonour'd!
His name shall be her foulest, worst reproach
For what he suffers, not for what he did.
'Tis ye who are all traitors, tyrant!-ye!
Did you but love your country like this victim
Who totters back in chains to tortures, and
Submits to all things rather than to exile,
You'd fling yourselves before him, and implore
His grace for your enormous guilt.
Doge.

He was

Lor.

Doge.

Have chosen well their envoy.

Lor.

Which leads me here.

Doge.

They

'Tis their choice

It does their wisdom honour,

Doge. What! have they met again, and met with Apprising me?

Lor.

No less than age.

Doge.

[out

They wish'd to spare your feelings,

That's new-when spared they either? I thank them, notwithstanding.

Doge.

Is that so strange,

And you, sir, not oppose my prayer to be Permitted to accompany my husband

Doge. I will endeavour.

And you, signor?

Lady!

Your fathers were mine enemies, as bitter
As their son c'er can be, and I no less
Was theirs; but I was openly their foe:
I never work'd by plot in council, nor
Cabal in commonwealth, nor secret means
Of practice against life by steel or drug.
The proof is, your existence.

Lor.
I fear not.
Doge. You have no cause, being what I am; but
were I
[now
That you would have me thought, you long ere
Were past the sense of fear. Hate on; I care not.
Lor. I never yet knew that a noble's life
In Venice had to dread a Doge's frown,
That is, by open means.

Doge.
But I, good signor,
Am, or at least was, more than a mere duke,
In blood, in mind, in means, and that they know
Who dreaded to elect me, and have since
Striven all they dare to weigh me down: be sure,
Before or since that period, had I held you
At so much price as to require your absence,
A word of mine had set such spirits to work
As would have made you nothing. But in all things
I have observed the strictest reverence;

Not for the laws alone, for those you have strain'd
(I do not speak of you but as a single
Voice of the many) somewhat beyond what
I could enforce for my authority,

Were I disposed to brawl; but, as I said,

I have observed with veneration, like
A priest's for the high altar, even unto
The sacrifice of my own blood and quiet,
Safety, and all save honour, the decrees,
The health, the pride, and welfare of the state.
And now, sir, to your business.

That, without further repetition of

The Question, or continuance of the trial,
Which only tends to show how stubborn guilt is
('The Ten,' dispensing with the stricter law
Which still prescribes the Question till a full
Confession, and the prisoner partly having
Avow'd his crime in not denying that
The letter to the Duke of Milan's his),
James Foscari return to banishment,

And sail in the same galley which convey'd him.

Mar. Thank God! At least they will not drag him more

Before that horrible tribunal. Would he
But think so, to my mind the happiest doom,
Not he alone, but all who dwell here, could
Desire, were to escape from such a land.

[ter.

Doge. That is not a Venetian thought, my daugh
Mar. No, 'twas too human. May I share his
Lor. Of this 'the Ten' said nothing. [exile?
Mar.
So I thought!

Mar.

Lor.

Those maxims for your mass of scared mechanics, Your merchants, your Dalmatian and Greek slaves, Your tributaries, your dumb citizens,

And mask'd nobility, your sbirri, and

Your spies, your galley and your other slaves,

To whom your midnight carryings off and drownings,

Your dungeons next the palace roofs, or under
The water's level; your mysterious meetings,
And unknown dooms, and sudden executions,
Your 'Bridge of Sighs,' your strangling chamber,
and

Your torturing instruments, have made ye seem
The beings of another and worse world!
Keep such for them; I fear ye not. I know ye;
Have known and proved your worst, in the infernal
Process of my poor husband! Treat me as
Ye treated him :-you did so, in so dealing
With him. Then what have I to fear from you,
Even if I were of fearful nature, which

Dege. All things are so to mortals; who can read
Save He who made? or, if they can, the few [them]
And gifted spirits, who have studied long
That loathsome volume-man, and pored upon

Those black and bloody leaves, his heart and brain,
But learn a magic, which recoils upon
The adept who pursues it: all the sins
We find in others, nature made our own;
All our advantages are those of fortune;
Birth, wealth, health, beauty, are her accidents,
And when we cry out against Fate, twere well
We should remember Fortune can take nought
Save what she gave-the rest was nakedness,
And lusts, and appetites, and vanities,
The universal heritage, to battle

With as we may, and least in humblest stations,
Where hunger swallows all in one low want,
And the original ordinance, that man

Must sweat for his poor pittance, keeps all passions
Aloof, save fear of famine! All is low,

And false, and hollow-clay from first to last,
The prince's urn no less than potter's vessel.
Our fame is in men's breath, our lives upon
Less than their breath; our durance upon days,
Our days on seasons; our whole being on
Something which is not us!-So, we are slaves,
The greatest as the meanest-nothing rests
Upon our will; the will itself no less
Depends upon a straw than on a storm;

And when we think we lead, we are most led.

And still towards death, a thing which comes as much

Without our act or choice as birth, so that

Methinks we must have sinn'd in some old world,
And this is hell: the best is, that it is not

Charge me with such a breach of faith.
Mar.
Observ'st, obey'st such laws as make old Draco's
A code of mercy by comparison.

Doge. I found the law; I did not make it. Were
A subject, still I might find parts and portions
Fit for amendment; but as prince, I never
Would change, for the sake of my house, the
Left by our fathers.
[charter

But yet subdued the world: in such a state
An individual, be he richest of
Such rank as is permitted, or the meanest,
Without a name, is alike nothing, when

The policy, irrevocably tending

To one great end, must be maintain'd in vigour. Mar. This means that you are more a Doge thats father.

Doge. It means, I am more citizen than ei her. If we had not for many centuries

Had thousands of such citizens, and shall,
I trust, have still such, Venice were no city.
Mar. Accursed be the city where the laws
Would stifle nature's!

As I have years, I would have given them all,
Not without feeling, but I would have given them
To the state's service, to fulfil her wishes

On the flood, in the field, or, if it must be,
As it, alas! has been, to ostracism,

She might decree.

SCENE I.-The Prison of Jacopo Foscari.

Fac. Fos. [solus]. No light save yon faint gleam which shows me walls

Which never echo'd but to sorrow's sounds,
The sigh of long imprisoninent, the step
Of feet on which the iron clank'd, the groan
Of death, the imprecation of despair!
And yet for this I have return'd to Venice,

With some faint hope, 'tis true, that time, which wears
The marble down, had worn away the hate
Of men's hearts; but I knew them not, and here
Must I consume my own, which never beat
For Venice but with such a yearning as

The dove has for her distant nest, when wheeling
High in the air on her return to greet
Her callow brood. What letters are these which
[Approaching the wall.
Are scrawl'd along the inexorable wall?
Will the gleam let me trace them? Ah! the names
Of my sad predecessors in this place,
The dates of their despair, the brief words of
A grief too great for many. This stone page
Holds like an epitaph their history;
And the poor captive's tale is graven on
His dungeon barrier, like the lover's record
Upon the bark of some tall tree, which bears
His own and his beloved's name. Alas!
I recognise some names familiar to me,
And blighted like to mine, which I will add,
Fittest for such a chronicle as this,

Which only can be read, as writ, by wretches.
[He engraves his name.
Enter a Familiar of the Ten.
Fam. I bring you food.
Fac. Fos.

I pray you set it down;
I am past hunger: but my lips are parch'd-
The water !

Fac. Fos. How I wouldst thou share a dungeon?
Mar.

The rack, the grave, all-anything with thee,
But the tomb last of all, for there we shall

Be ignorant of each other, yet I will
Share that-all things except new separation;

It is too much to have survived the first.

Ay.

How dost thou? How are those worn limbs? Alas! Why do I ask? Thy paleness'Tis the joy

Fac. Fos.

Of seeing thee again so soon, and so
Without expectancy, has sent the blood
Back to my heart, and left my cheeks like thine,
For thou art pale too, my Marina !

Mar. Fac. Fos. And wherefore not? All then shall speak of me:

The tyranny of silence is not lasting,

And, though events be hidden, just men's groans
Will burst all cerement, even a living grave's!
I do not doubt my memory, but my life;
And neither do I fear.

Mar.

Thy life is safe. Fac. Fos, And liberty? Mar. The mind should make its own. Fac. Fos. That has a noble sound; but 'tis a sound, A music most impressive, but too transient : The mind is much, but is not all. The mind.